Casablanca .... that film ... on the wireless today

It's the film pretty much everyone says they like.

And why not?

Set against the backdrop of the struggle against the Nazi regime, it has a superb plot, a clutch of excellent actors, screen writers and memorable scenes.  To which can be added that song and stunning cinematography and a heap of unforgettable one liners.

It is hard to select one scene that stands out, but for me one must be when the Nazi officers singing a German patriotic song are drowned out by the club's band and clientele performing "La Marseillaise".

More so because some of the actors were themselves refugees from Occupied Europe.

All of which is an introduction to theis week's In Our Time we features a discussion on the film.

And it was so good I listened to it twice.

"Recorded at the Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield, Misha Glenny and guests discuss Casablanca, one of the greatest films from Hollywood’s Golden Era.

The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and features the unforgettable song As Time Goes By.

Casablanca opened in November 1942 when Europe had been at war for three years and the USA for one. 

It was among Hollywood’s first major films to explain to US audiences why the war was worth fighting, and alongside this became a huge box office hit.

It was created by a cast and crew full of emigres and refugees from lands under Nazi control. They produced a movie that has authenticity as well as astonishing emotional power that continues to this day.

With Ian Christie, Emeritus Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck University of London, Pamela Hutchinson, Film historian and critic, Sheldon Hall, Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Producers: Simon Tillotson & Sam Peach"

Pictures; Casablanca poster, and scene from the trailer

*Casablanca, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00325cd 

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

And, so have the half sunken vessels which lay where they had sunk slowly rotting away.

It always amazed me that long after the restoration of the canal the three were still there, although as befitting the new tidied up canal they have finally gone.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.3 the Pie Shop

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1979.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.  

But all good things eventually come to light.  

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

The Pie Mash and Eel shop was still there in 2009, but had gone by June 2012.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich, circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chorlton in 1798

I am back with a little bit of Chorlton from 1798 looking again at some online records from Ancestry.

This one is the Land Tax Redemption for 1798, which was a tax based on the value of someone’s home.  So here we have the names of the people who lived in Chorlton in 1798 with whether they owned or rented the property and how much each house was worth.

It is a remarkable document, because it takes us back into the 18th century.  Now there are the parish records detailing the births, deaths and marriages for the township as well as the Egerton and Lloyd estate papers but here we have some of the financial details of our people a full 40 years or more before the 1841 census and the rate books and tithe survey.

There are many of the familiar names that crop up throughout the 19th century and a few new ones.  Some are quite clearly on the cusp of doing better while others will fare much the same four decades later.

And of course it is their economic standing which will be so revealing as well as their relationship with the Egerton’s and Lloyds who between them owned most of our land.
It should be possible to locate some of the properties and compare values with the rate books and tithe records for the 1840s onwards and compare the township with other nearby communities.

All of which I think is pretty neat.

Picture; the township just twenty or so years after the 1798 tax record, from Greenwood’s map of Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Lost Woolwich .......... no 3 relaxing in the allotments 1905

Now of all the places I knew in my youth I have to say Woolwich is one of those that has  undergone some of the most radical change.

So much so that big chunks of it I have difficulty recognising.

The Arsenal, Powis Street and even the old Pie and Mash shop were as familiar to me as they were to generations of people who grew up in Woolwich and are now just distant memories.

So with that in mind I have returned to images of a time before now.

This one is dated 1905.

I doubt I will ever know who these three men were or exactly what each grew on his allotments.

But it is a fine picture taken on a sunny day over a century ago

Picture; from Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, Amberley 2014

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 47 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The real surprise was the conversion of the railway arches into Deansgate Locks which are described as the “Trendy nightspot for those who want to party the night away. You'll find establishments such as The Comedy Store, Revolution and Baa Bar. This canal side location is perfect for those who want to stay in one area, find DJ's playing all night and plenty of cocktails".**

All a bit brighter than 40 years ago when the best you could hope for was a passingboat.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, 2003, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

**Deansgate Locks, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/deansgate-locks-p37991

Chorlton's own radical ... Thomas Walker

This is the story of Thomas Walker one time pillar of Manchester society but also a radical politician who campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade, supported the French Revolution and was indicted for treason in 1794.

The family lived at Barlow Hall from the late 18th century spending the summer there before moving back for the winter to their town house on South Parade which faces what is now Parsonage Gardens.
And it was there that a mob attacked Walker who was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol in the December of 1792.

This was at the height of political debate over the issues of press freedom and the French Revolution.
“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city.  Walker was in no doubt that this was pre planned.  

‘Parties were collected in different public houses, and from thence paraded in the streets with a fiddler before them, and carrying board on which was painted with CHURCH and KING in large letters’ 

On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in.  Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds.

The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms”    and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given.

As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned!  These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.”*

Walker survived both the attacks and was acquitted of treason, after which he retired to the new family home at Longford House where he died in February 1817 and was buried in the parish church on the green.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  Barlow Hall, circa 1890, from the Lloyd Collection, and the Walker family gravestone in the parish churchyard from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2011.

Next; Thomas Walker and the campaign to abolish the Slave Trade

* The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton